


Twelve Grand Rivers

by Deiocculus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Death, Fantasy, Gen, Original Character(s), Trolls are Gods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:33:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deiocculus/pseuds/Deiocculus
Summary: 『A Lingering Stillness,A Foundation For Degradation,And Twelve Grand Rivers Dyed Red.』『A HERO Summoned,The Gods Murdered,And Their Thrones Toppled.』『How Will You Reach Heaven, Hero?』Your name is ____ _______  and you whisper your answer without a moment's hesitation.





	1. A Half-Millenium Journey Back

**Author's Note:**

> It's been five hundred years and she still looks fine.

『A LINGERING STILLNESS,』

There's a knowledge that gained when seeing kingdoms lying quiet, castles abandoned and ruined, books crumbling with dew and spiderwebs sitting on the thrones of once-loved hero Kings. A magician's room littered with a failed experiment, a grimoire on a pedestal with its pages still teeming with forces unknown to the common man and woman and all between(though faded, twisting and coiling with no-one to make use of it, the air in the room long since stagnant).

『A FOUNDATION FOR DEGRADATION,』

Gained often by those yet breathing with lungs untainted, the way they live and die now -- their hands grabbing for anything that can save them, any ancient magic that can bring them to the peak of the world, the peak they've heard of in stories passed down from those who who survived the first day of the Cataclysm. Stories of sprawling castles, bottomless dungeons explored by adventurers, and a hope for the future guided by the hands of ever-present gods.

『AND TWELVE GRAND RIVERS DYED RED.』

There's a certain acceptance gained when living in a world shattered, fields of murdered men and women laying with vines interwoven among their bones and swords. A cracking silence replacing the voices of fighting warriors, crickets chirping without a moment's thought for the dead. The skeleton sitting against the tree with a dull sword in its hand was meant for greater things than a death with no glory that reeks of rotting dreams and palpable pestilence, inky black tendrils still crawling at its base - the dying pantheon's last retribution against the world that slayed it.

『A HERO SUMMONED,

She was there when it began, watching golden light coming from the 20ft circle, and witnessed with young eyes the robed, solemn HERO come from a world far. A blue, glowing sword in their hands.

THE GODS MURDERED,

She remembers well, how the HERO cut down the king and left, glowing sword still in hand. They asked no question, they paused for no one, and the magician's magic was cut down without a moment's hesitation like a taut rope with a knife ran through it.

AND THEIR THRONES TOPPLED』

She stands, now, holding a staff in her hand in the same place she once stood to summon the hero, her eyes glowing golden and a sense of old in her every movement -- graceful, stern, and holding the same appearance she held five centuries ago. Time has passed, the world still clicks, and her staff is gnarled and pulsing with five hundred years of use and care. Her skin matches not the fading gold of the king's throne.

There is nothing she can do to fix her murdered gods and king; she summoned the HERO herself, after reading ancient tomes in the castles' depths, of how to summon a soul from another world and with the hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd save her country from the maws of the Demon King - but no, she didn't, she just ripped the world from its place, its natural laws shattered, and brought in a horror worse than the Demon King could ever have hoped to be.

But now, now, she can change things. She's studied the ritual. She's spent so, so much time studying its ins and outs, just where she'd messed up the first time and caused the Cataclysm the HERO wrought -- and now, she's sure of it, that she can _change_  everything.

She can sew closed the bleeding wound on the world, if she can muster up the strength to summon a true savior, someone to change her mistake and bring the world to mustering the strength to lift itself up. The GODS are dead, there is no standing king, the people are scattered - but, she believes.

There's still hope, she has the materials to try summoning one more time. She cannot **fix** , but she can **change**. Two heroes. That's all she needs, she thinks.

"I give my name! I give my being, I give my very existence: Fifty-Seven Turbulent Breath Questions the Living!" A phrase she'd been too afraid to speak before, the first time she tried the ritual, when she thought gold and apples and royalties would be enough to fulfill the condition of summoning.

She watches with keen interest as magic swirls around her, her very existence beginning to crack and crumble. Words, meanings, name, _intention_. Every bit of it played a role in determining the effects of magic and swordplay and all else in this world. She could feel something deep within her beginning to fade away, but she paid no mind to it. She'd accepted this as a necessary sacrifice. She'd cease to exist in the cycle of rebirth, but she didn't mind this one bit.

 


	2. A One-City Empire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A once-great Empire reduced to a single city -
> 
> a tragedy, really, but a lot better than the alternatives.

There was a mountain out by the cave owned by the late Hether's tamed terror, the damn eight-eyed chicken, that was once a tall standing thing with a peak reaching the heavens and giving the bravest men and women a view of the mountains that went past it, of the hills and plains that you could just _almost_ reach if you stuck your hand out just far enough.

Course, that was years ago, when the mountain hadn't given in and crushed Hether with its rolling, vast body. Some say Hether was planning a coup against the Empress herself, getting people together, and that it was by her will that the mountain crushed him -- but most know better, the river passing through the mountain happened to cause just the right amount of stress on it for a sizeable chunk of it to fall into what was once a beautiful lake next to the mountain.

A hill now, with the occasional spurt of water coming out from where the mountain's chunk failed to fill(though the more learned figure it'd only take a few years for any water there to be inconsiderable).

It's already been twelve years from then.

Some say you can still hear Hether's ghost from the hill at night, cursing the mountain for cutting his life short. Most settlers stay away on virtue of that alone, and the wretched, dying clucking beast that inhabits the cave that was once Hether's. Waiting, sitting, guarding the place its charge once went to daily. No one knows how the hell it's survived this long, pushing a hundred and thirty years, but that's besides the point. New settlers are sparsely populating the area surrounding Hether's Hill.

Ochenn's heard the stories passed around here from a travelling merchant he’s always bought his cooking tools and other materials from, when he doesn't want to go out to the nearest city that sells the things in the first place. Knives, cleavers, hooks, mortars, pestles, rare spices and herbs; all kinds of things he wouldn't be able to get without leaving too far from his home.

Ochenn doesn't know how the woman in robes gets past the sun, despite said robes, but he doesn't question it too much. The robes aren’t enough to hide her smell or the tell-tell blue skin from him, the distinct smell and color of the Sun-Scorned, but he doesn’t question how she survives what most of her race can’t. She wouldn’t be here if she wanted it to be known, out where there isn’t an abundance of people to sell to. A rare sun-resistant one, some high-tech umbrella; it doesn't matter how, all that matters is that his materials get to him promptly.

He won’t report her to one of the Empire’s priests, not when he’s yet to become the best chef to exist. He knows that her kind had left the Empire long ago - when an Heiress rebelled against the Empress at the time and decided to leave with her followers, living underground and failing to gain the resistance trolls who stayed with the Empire managed to build up for the sun… but none of this concerns him.

The Empire is no longer an empire. The capital is all the remains after the cataclysm and the Empress is self-proclaimed, she rules no kingdom nor collection of countries. The Condescencion has long since passed, and the current Empress only rides on the fame of her ancestors. The only reason trolls still stay with her is the existence of the walls around the city that can work to keep it protected from the monsters outside.

It doesn't take long to reach the sole city.

“The _rot_ ,” The man exhales the word as if saying it with any more fervency would manage to purge it from the world in its entirety, his body nearly shaking the stage he’s on with sheer piety and dedication, “has long since lived _among_ us,” the man continues, lips smacking in their full, dried glory -- one matching his guttural voice in the same way yellow matches purple. A kind of congruity that satisfies a need for order yet still manages to be as disgusting as all hell is hot.

“They _lurk_ among us, my pious brethren, dripping slime-covered tongues over the heads of our daughters and sons, the damn’ed scourge of those who claim allegiance to the **Left Hand** , like _guillotines_ . Their very breath on our souls, their existence lik - no, their existence **a** blot upon this world crafted by our goddess, corrupts us by sheer presence. To purge them is our purpose in life, our god-given duty! We are sinners to the gods! They have abandoned us for our laziness, our refusal to purge those who had _betrayed_ us!” The man nearly shouts towards the end of his speech, sweat on his forehead and a redness to his face that reminds some of the red of a burning fire.

The city is just like Ochenn remembers it.


	3. Travelers Guide, Page One

#  _A Guide To The Remaining Vestiges of Troll and Human Civilization_

## Lightbringer Lecroix

##  Alternia

    The common misconception brought by the Alternian Empire is the status of being an empire in of itself. It once  _was_ an empire, but it's glory has long since faded into obscurity and there's little to show of the once-grand conquering state other than a single remaining capital. The old Empress is dead, the Empire is but a city-state, and the priests tell tales of wicked magic played by the group that had left the Empire before the cataclysm: the so-called Sun-Scorned that had went through the mountain to the west and into a system of caves for so long they started to develop blue skin as generations passed.

    If it wasn't clear, it's not somewhere you want to be.

    If you're already there, you shouldn't be reading this in public. Gods know what'd happen to you if one of the priests catches sight of you holding this. Leave for somewhere quiet and secluded or throw this book to the nearest ditch, burn it for good measure.... If you're not stupid enough to have brought treason with you in public, then keep reading. You're already a few steps ahead of the rest. You'll need to keep yourself on your toes if you ever plan on going to what remains of Alternia: a city called Albus.

    Albus is one of the cities that had a multi-layer defense set up before the cataclysm. The raining hellfire and brimstone had reached it, yes, but the layers upon layers of barriers kept a majority of the debris from falling into the city, and what made it in wasn't enough to wipe it off the face of the world - Albus survived, the surroundings didn't fare so well. The destruction brought by the cataclysm can be seen clearly up to four miles from the outer walls, with charred ground and an unnatural staleness to the air the tell-tell signal that you've gone to a city you shouldn't have in the first place. The first thing you'll be greeted by when you enter the city will probably be a sight of a painted-face troll, sometimes a human, on a stage spouting nonsense about how the blue-skinned trolls led the Empire to ruin. 

    Avoid the priests at all costs, don't tell people more than they need to know, and don't be afraid to spend money on getting a good inn - but most importantly, don't stay. The magic the Empire used to extend the life of its inhabitants no longer has the same effect - their Grand River has long since dried up.

    If you must go to the city, though, there are more than a few sho[...]-

1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> using paragraph indentations, Lecroix is sooo pretentious.... i'll use that as my excuse until i figure how to use this website out.


End file.
